Sorry for not posting for so long. You know how it is: I hadn't started a new series, necessarily, until recently. (And, while I'm at it, I'm also sorry that tonight's blog title didn't have a pun or a reference in it. I just couldn't think of anything.)
In truth, I saw the first volume of this manga on my second-to-most-recent B&N visit, but I didn't have time back then to pick it up. It seemed, from the blurb on the back, to be relatively ordinary, perhaps too ordinary for me. But a few days ago, I had the time to read all I wanted, so I decided to pick it up.
Anyway, here's the basic premise: The world is one not unlike modern day Tokyo, but there's one big difference (God, I love using colons and semicolons. Have you ever noticed that?): Due to a currently low birth rate, people at the age of 16 are genetically screened and matched up by a government computer with someone else of compatible material.
Enter our hero, Nejima Yukari, male. Ever since he loaned her half of his eraser back in grade school, he's been in love with fellow classmate Misaki Takasaki. Sweet, isn't it? I bet they wind up getting together and live happily ever after.
They actually may or may not, that's how non-standard this story is.
But, anyway, Nejima, for some reason, decides to confess his feelings to Takasaki on the very eve of his sixteenth birthday. And, as it turns out, she's always loved him, too. But enter the wild card character: Nejima's chosen genetic mate, Lilina Sanada.
Initially, Lilina comes off as a generic tsundere character, but it's later revealed that she's like that to everyone, not just Nejima. And, what's more, she even genuinely tries to support Nejima and Misaki's relationship. Lilina is friendly enough towards the both of them, and it doesn't quite feel like it's turning into love, so who knows on that front?
There's also a hot male character named Nisaki, who, as it turns out, is gay for Nejima. Who would have expected it? That alone makes this feel like "not your ordinary rom-com manga", let alone the friendship and lack of competition between the two girl characters.
(And, as an added bonus for all you pervs out there, we do get several pages in Volume One of Lilina pantsless with a half-buttoned shirt. But it's not too much, going so far as to completely eclipse a flimsy excuse for a story, like it would in My Life With Monster Girls or something.)
I stopped reading Horimiya and Say You Love Me after only one volume each (I think) because they just struck me as too boring or ordinary. But this story changes around a few things and doesn't feel too much like it's following the same old tired formula. Who knows whether Lilina will grow to love Nejima? Who knows if Misaki is ever going to let him go and give him a sad, schmaltzy, tear-filled farewell?
All I knows is, it's probably not going to end with a Nejima x Nisaki pairing. Sorry, buddy. :P
